Latest update after Swiss Bank has agreed to disclose the funds .

Our Indians' Money - 70, 00,000 Crores Rupees In Swiss Bank 1) Yes, 70 lakhs crores rupees of India are lying in Switzerland banks. This is the highest amount lying outside any country, from amongst 180 countries of the world, as if India is the champion of Black Money. 2) Swiss Government has officially written to Indian Government that they are willing to inform the details of holders of 70 lakh crore rupees in their Banks, if Indian Government officially asks them. 3) On 22-5-08, this news has already been published in The Times of India and other Newspapers based on Swiss Government's official letter to Indian Government. 4) But the Indian Government has not sent any official enquiry to Switzerland for details of money which has been sent outside India between 1947 to 2008.. The opposition party is also equally not interested in doing so because most of the amount is owned by politicians and it is every Indian's money. 5) This money belongs to our country. From these funds we can repay 13 times of our country's foreign debt. The interest alone can take care of the Center s yearly budget. People need not pay any taxes and we can pay Rs. 1 lakh to each of 45 crore poor families. 6) Let us imagine, if Swiss Bank is holding Rs. 70 lakh Crores, then how much money is lying in other 69 Banks? How much they have deprived the Indian people? Just think, if the Account holder dies, the bank becomes the owner of the funds in his account. 7) Are these people totally ignorant about the philosophy of Karma? What will this ill-gotten wealth do to them and their families when they own/use such money, generated out of corruption and exploitation? 8) Indian people have read and have known about these facts. But the helpless people have neither time nor inclination to do anything in the matter. This is like "a new freedom struggle" and we will have to fight this. 9) This money is the result of our sweat and blood.. The wealth generated and earned after putting in lots of mental and physical efforts by Indian people must be brought back to our country.

10) As

a service to our motherland and your contribution to this struggle, please circulate at least 10 copies of this note amongst your

friends and relatives and convert it into a mass movement.

CHAPTER II

JIZYAH AND ITS ASSOCIATIONS-IMPLICATIONS

Little research appears to have been attempted on the role of Jizyah in the spread of Islam or even on Jizyah in general. We are aware of only one monograph on it, by Daniel C. Denett. 1 An article, 'Al-Jizyah', in Urdu from the pen of Shibli Nu'mani (d. 1916) was hailed by Abu 'I-Kalam Azad as a major breakthrough of the modem age in Islamic studies. Shibli, Denett, and others are inclined to trace the origin of the term and concept of Jizyah to Aramaic 'gizt'/'gizyat' (Shibli)2 or 'gzth' known to have been in vogue from before the time of Khusrau AnshrwN (531-579 A.D.). It was a kind of capitation tax or poll tax, payment of which amounted to a badge of degradation and a mark of social inferiority. Therefore, privileged classes, such as ruling, military, priestly and educated aristocracy were exempt from it. 3 For Jizyah, the Byzantine Empire had its own counterpart, tributum capitis, from before circa 290 A.D. Constantine (274-337 A.D.) is reported to have exempted the urban pleb from it. By and by 'the poll tax became, after fourth century, a burden uniquely assessed on the colonus and identified with this class of society, and that to this tax a stigma, " injuria", was attached, as in the phrase "a plebeiae capitationis injuria".4 We shall see that payment of Jizyah as prescribed by the Qur'n also carries a stigma with it. The Qur'n prescribes Jizyah in a Jihdic verse, revealed about 631 A.D., i.e. about a year after the capture of Mecca by the Prophet in 630 A.D., envisaging compounding of refusal to embrace Islam by paying Jizyah. We quote the verse in full, in original; 'Qtilu 'I-ladhna l yu'mna bi 'llhi, wa l bi 'l-yawmi 'l-khiri, wa l yuHarrimna m Harrama 'Ilhu wa raslu-h, wa l yadinna dna 'I-Haqq mina 'I-ladhna tu 'I-kitba, hatt yu'Tu 'I-jizyata 'a yyadiN wwa hum Sghirna.5 Mohomed Marmaduke Pickthall translates it thus: 'Fight against such of those who have been given the Scripture as believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and forbid not that which Allah hath forbidden by His messenger, and follow not the religion of truth, until they pay the tribute readily, being brought low.' This represents the common run of translations of the verse by Muslims and non-Muslims alike. The verse so translated leaves the course of paying Jizyah, as alternative to conversion and death, open to the scripturaries, people of the book, only. And the Qur'n recognizes only two communities (T'ifatayn), viz. Jews and Christians, as scripturaries. 6 Imm Shfi', one of the four great jurists of Islam, includes the Magians (Zoroastrians) among the scripturaries, on the basis of a precedent set by the Prophet in accepting Jizyah from the Magians of BaHrn, Hajar, QaTr, Qatf, and 'Ummn. 'Umar, the second Caliph, accorded this status to the Magians of Persia and Sabaeans of Mesopotamia, 'Uthmn to Berbers of Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco (all in North Africa), and Muhammad bin Qsim under the Governor Hajjj bin Ysuf and the Caliph Wald bin 'Abd al-Malik to the Hindus and Buddhists of Sindh. According to Imam Malik, another of the four great jurists, the verse of Jizyah is applicable to all non-Muslims excepting apostates (murtadd-s). Imm Ab Hanfah, a third great jurist out of the four, applies it to all excepting the idolaters of Arabia. All non-Jizyah-paying infidels deserve death as a rule.

Our interpretation of the Jizyah verse is entirely different. We are inclined to believe that the doors of paying Jizyah are open to scripturaries and non-scripturaries alike. Let us examine the verse closely. The verse in question prescribes Jihd against non-Muslims of the following two categories: 1. Those who do not believe in God, the Last Day, and the distinction between the tabooed (Harm) and the non-tabooed (Hall) drawn by God and His apostle. 2. Those of the scripturaries who do not accept Islam. The people referred to under the first category cannot be scripturaries, for the simple reason that all scripturaries believe in God, the Last Day, and the taboo-non-taboo distinction. Hence only non-scripturaries come under that category. This is why we maintain that the verse applies to non-Muslims of both the categories. We would, accordingly, propose retranslation of the verse thus: 'Fight against those who believe not in Allah nor the Last Day, and taboo not what Allh and His apostle have tabooed, and against such of those who have been given the scripture as follow not the religion of truth, until they pay Jizyah with their own hand, being brought low.' 7 It is significant that this verse belongs to Srah at-Tawbah/al-Bar'ah (Srah 9) revealed on the eve of and for the Great Hajj ( Hajj al-Akbar) as the Qur'n calls it,8 which concerned the idolaters much more than others,9 for from then on the rule of Jhiliyyah (paganism) yielded place to Islam. It is also to be noted, incidentally, that in the Meccan treaty, concluded in circa 623 A.D., i.e. about eight years before revelation of the verse under consideration, between the Aws and the Khazraj tribes, to which the Jews were allowed to adhere, no Jizyah nor any other disability was imposed, save the stipulation that, if they took part in a war fought by the Muslims against the Kfirs, they must share the expenses in the joint action. Well, the thrust of the Jizyah-verse and its implications as worked out and codified in course of time boil down to the following significant points: 1. Jizyah is primarily a Jihdic impost, not a fiscal one, as sought usually to be made out. 2. In the matter of liability for Jizyah, scripturaries and other non-Muslims share the same fate, with the reservation, however, that the Prophet is traditioned to have willed ( awS) and commanded (amara) at the time of his death that there should be no non-Muslims in Arabia any longer,10 thereby ruling out the concession of Jizyah for them. 3. It presupposes Islam's Eminent Domain over all other communities. 4. It presupposes the principles (i) that the world is meant for and belongs to the Muslims to the entire exclusion of the K5firs, and (ii) that thereby life and property of the communities conquered by the Muslims in Jihd is entirely at the disposal of the latter, who could plunder, enslave, or kill them at will.11 5. It involves no obligation (dhimmah) on the part of Islamdom towards Jizyah-paying individuals or communities called Dhimm-s save of course the negative one of nonextermination and of not grudging them bare subsistence, as though as hewers of wood and drawers of water. Dhimmah or Dhimm-hood is survival on ransom (Jizyah and allied imposts). 6. Different theories are there in the field as regards the purpose of the Qurnic provision for imposition of Jizyah, such, for example, as

(i) satisfaction (jaza'a = he gave satisfaction), (ii) compensation, (iii) rental for residence, (iv) price for protection (amn), (v) exchange for military service, (vi) price for exercise of religion, (vii) punishment for unbelief, (viii) humiliation for persistence in darkness or contempt for rival faith, and, by way of a secondary motive, (ix) love of power and pelf at the cost of others, which includes, inter alia, pauperization of the latter, as at any rate was the case under the Sultanate in medieval India. Imposition of Jizyah is, thereby, an engine of exploitation. To put things straight, we may highlight the following principal motives for imposition of Jizyah: 1. It is meant to be an alternative to killing, plunder, enslavement, ransom, forcible conversion, as well as to be a penalty for Kufr. Thereby, it transpires to be a kind of composition fine, an indulgence tax. It is fiscal Jihd, so to speak. 2. It is a badge of humiliation for being a non-Muslim, of utter servility to Islamdom, of abject surrender to the brute force of Islam. Islam is absolute surrender to the will of God; liability to pay Jizyah, abject surrender to the will of Islamdom. The amount of Jizyah does not matter much. The great Persian poet Bedil's poetic verdict is memorable: 'Ilaj-I nst dgh- bandag r Agar besham wa gar kam frdand That is, 'There is no cure for the blot of servility. It matters not whether it is more or less.' 3. The long-term policy behind it appears to be to compel or motivate the Dhimm-s slowly to turn to Islam and embrace it. They were let live in the hope of their conversion in course of time. It is thereby a camouflaged engine of repression. 4. It opens the door to levy of other humiliating taxes on the Dhimm-s, such for example as pilgrimage tax, for petty concession to them in the observance of their religious ceremonies etc. It is also a prelude to Kharj (land-tax) into the bargain. We cannot resist the temptation of quoting Mujaddid-i Alf-i Thn, the second-millennium reviver/rejuvenator of Islam during JahNgr's reign, on the purpose of imposition of Jizyah: 'The real purpose of imposing Jizyah on them (the Kfirs) is their humiliation. And the humiliation goes to the extent that for fear of Jizyah they may not put on good dress and live with dignity/in prosperity and they may always live in fear trembling.' ( Wa maqSd-i aSl az jizyah giriftan az shN khr-i ishn ast. Wa n khr ba-Hadd- 'st ki az tars-i jizyah jmah-i khb na mtawnand poshd, wa ba-tajammul na m-tawnand bd, wa hamshah tarsN wa larzN mibshand).12 Indeed, levy of Jizyah is a long-term exercise in controlled compulsion for conversion. This is theory. Let us look into history,

How did Jizyah come to be introduced? It was Najrn, a district of Yaman and the greatest centre of civilization and Christianity in the Arabian peninsula. Long before the pretensions of the Quraysh of Mecca whose nobility came to be recognized only after their Islamization and mainly because of their kinship with the Prophet, the Najrnites were esteemed as the wealthiest and noblest of the Arabs by all, including poets. Having emerged as the biggest power in Arabia, the Prophet began to send squads of missionaries far and wide to spread Islam. When one such squad reached Na.jr5n, in 629 A.D., the Christians there began to question the validity and authenticity of the Qur'n, which the illiterate missionaries of Islam had not visualized. The Christians drew their attention to the blunder in the Qur'nic description 13 of Mary, Jesus's mother, as the sister of Moses and Aaron. Mughrah bin Shu'bah, the leader of the mission, failed to reply and reported the matter to the Prophet. The Prophet called the Christians. Their delegation started in horror, with the following verses on their lips: 'We are appearing before you in such a way that even the embryo in our camel's womb is feeling restless. His religion is opposed to that of the Christians.'14 When they drew near the Prophet, he turned his face from them and did not talk to them. Next morning he invited them to embrace Islam, which they rejected. There was a virtual debate between him and the Christians. The Prophet criticised their doctrine of the Christ's Sonship of God. Upon this, the Christians asked him who in his opinion was the father of Jesus. The Prophet could not reply. After some time, however, a revelation came to him to the effect that the birth of Jesus was akin to that of Adam. 15 As regards the Christians' question about Mary, the Prophet said nothing beyond the statement that the Israelites sometimes named their members after the names of their forbears.16 When the Prophet failed to satisfy them, however, he challenged them to settle the dispute by the old Arab method sanctioned by the Qur'an, of reciprocal curses (mubhalah).17 The Christians disapproved of it and withdrew, as the New Testament forbids cursing. Then the Prophet dictated his terms, asked them to embrace Islam, and, upon their refusal, to accept his suzerainty and pay Jizyah. They were made subjects of the Prophet and had Jizyah imposed upon them perforce. The treaty concluded by the Prophet with the Najrnites served as a model for future treaties with scripturaries. According to it, the Najrnites were to enjoy protection of life, property, and religion, 'till God ordained otherwise, in return for the payment of an annual Jizyah of two thousand garments (Hullah-s) of a specified value plus one qiyyah (40 dirham-s/ one pound, more or less) of silver, with each garment, together with the provision of board and lodging to the Prophet's envoys for upto a month. It was also incumbent upon the Najrnites to lend thirty coats of mail, thirty horses, and thirty camels in the event of a war with al-Yaman and refrain from usury.18 The first Caliph, Ab Bakr, honoured the agreement, but 'Umar, the second Caliph. took advantage of the clause to the effect that the agreement was valid till God ordained otherwise and the Prophet's will that there should be no non-Muslims in Arabia, and banished the Najrnites after buying up their property. He also gave them a writ to the effect that they must be provided with land for residence and cultivation in Syria and Iraq. Thereafter, they had to disperse and seek asylum in Syria and Kfah. In Kfah, they founded a town named An-Nairniyyah. When 'Uthmn, the third Caliph, came into power, it was represented to him that 'Umar's writ served to deprive the original land-holders of their land. He, therefore, decreased their Jizyah by two hundred garments. The Najrnites' untold suffering constrained them to represent to 'Al, the fourth Caliph, to let them revert to Najrn in terms of their agreement with the Prophet reduced to writing by 'Al himself. But to no effect. They in due course approached the fifth and sixth Caliphs, who decreased their Jizyah further by two hundred garments. Later, Hajjj bin Yasuf,

governor of Irq, tyrannized over them and enhanced their Jizyah beyond endurable limits. When 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Azz became Caliph, they complained to him that they were virtually ruined and that they remained only one tenth of their population. The Caliph reduced their Jizyah to two hundred garments.19 This in short is the tale of the finest civilization of the Arabian peninsula uprooted and thrown out of history for good, by what is flaunted as the religion of peace. Jizyah remained an instrument of motivation towards conversion throughout the history of Islam. Besides, believe it or not, it sometimes operated as a stumbling block in the path of conversion. It became an instrument of exploitation at the hands of greedy rulers, so much so that it came sometimes to be levied on neo-Muslims as well, outside Arabia. This became the order of the day during the Umayyad regime. It was 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Azz, (d.720 A.D.), one of the Umayyad Caliphs themselves, who abolished it altogether. There appears, however, to have been a relapse of the malaise during the regime of Hishm bin 'Abd al-Malik soon after. One of his governors did exempt the neo-Muslims from the liability to pay Jizyah, but it came to be reimposed when its abolition began to affect the exchequer adversely. 'Umar, the second Caliph, had earlier practised the anomaly of imposing double Zakt on the Christians of Bane Taghlib, even though Zakt is due from the Muslims only, according to the Qur'dn. This led to complications, religious as well as political. The Caliph did propose to impose Jizyah on them, but they considered it beneath their dignity to be rendered liable to pay Jizyah, and threatened exodus from the Dr al-Islm. Upon this, 'Umar was advised not to antagonize that extremely warlike Arab tribe and he levied Zakt on them instead of Jizyah. The tribe preferred it to Jizyah.20 Jizyah continued to be used with varying degrees of emphasis for compelling conversion. Twenty-four thousand Christians embraced Islam, when Al-HafS bin al-Wald, the deposed governor of Egypt, took advantage of the Umayyad family revolution to regain his office and proclaimed (in 744 A.D.) that converts to Islam would be exempted from Jizyah. The same thing happened in 751 A.D., when the Abbsid governor of Egypt held out the same promise.21 Sometimes, the Jizyah gun misfired. We have seen how the Christians of Ban Taghlib accepted liability for double Zakt and rejected levy of Jizyah as humiliating. A Christian named Jabalah offered to pay Zakt but not Jizyah. 'Umar did not agree. Then he left the Dr al-Islm for some territory under the Roman empire along with thirty thousand people. 'Umar relented and requested them to return and pay whatever they had offered to. But they did not accede to his request and the Caliph was deprived of an important source of revenue.22 Unlike the other Umayyads who were interested more in Jizyah than in the spead of Islam, 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Azz was all for the latter. His governor of Egypt, Hayyn, wrote to him: 'O Commander of the Faithful! If things continue as they are now in Egypt, all the "Protected Peoples" will soon become Muslims and then we shall cease to get money (taxes) from them.' Whereupon 'Umar sent him a messenger saying: 'Go down to Egypt and give Hayyn thirty stripes with a whip upon his head as a punishment for that which he has written and tell him as follows: "Take care, O Hayyan! whosoever has become a Muslim, do not ask poll-tax from him. I only wish that the whole bunch of them would become converted. Verily! Allh has sent MuHammad as a preacher, not as a tax-gatherer.''' (al-Wsit, alive 1292). 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Azz's governors and Jizyah-collectors tried, however, to circumvent his dispensation. The governor of Khursn planned to keep the number of Jizyah assessees as high as possible by laying down conditions of circumcision to be certified by a staff appointed for the

purpose, of memorizing at least one chapter of the Qur'n, of proving by word and deed loyalty to the Muslims, and so forth, with the result that the great majority of neo-Muslims had to keep bearing the burden of Jizyah. Thus, though Jizyah has played enormous role in the spread of Islam, it sometimes helped retard it as well. When a tribe found that acceptance of Islam failed to save it from Jizyah and other humiliations accompanying it, it saw no point in continuing in Islam or embracing it. Sometimes, they had to revert to their ancestral religion. Thus, the Sughd-s of the trans-m region had become Muslims for exemption from Jizyah but had later to revert to their native religion in thousands on finding themselves still under the yoke of the same disabilities and indignities as ordained for non-Muslims. Sometimes, again, even exodus took place for fear of Jizyah. During the regime of 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Azz himself, when Asharas, the governor of Khursn, reimposed Jizyah on neo-Muslims, seven thousand of them left Samarqand in search of a Jizyahfree abode. In fact, not only Jizyah but also booty (nafal/ghanimah) in war with non-Muslims was responsible for retarding the process of conversion to Islam. A couple of the Qur'nic verses prescribe plunder or booty as an integral part of Jihd and legitimate source of income. 23 And plunder is of three kinds: 1. Property, movable and immovable (amwl wa amlk) 2. Women and children, especially women (saby) 3. Prisoners, especially male prisoners (usar') Booty in war with non-Muslims proved so gainful to the Muslims even during the Prophet's time that, when a Companion of the Prophet planned to attack a non-Muslim tribe and the tribe not only surrendered but also, on a promise being held out by him to save their life and property on embracing Islam, did embrace Islam, his comrades took him to task for thus depriving the Muslims of booty.24 'Umar, the second Caliph, wrote to Sa'd when he conquered Irq: 'Anyone who obeys you and accepted Islam prior to the battle is one of the Muslim, owning what they own and having a share in Islam. But he who obeyed you after the battle and the defeat, is (also) one of the Muslims; however, his property goes to the people of Islam because they acquired it before the conversion to Islam. The people of any town subjugated by force who embrace Islam prior to the division of spoils are considered free people, but their properties go to the Muslims.'25 This is itself a licence to loot neo-Muslims. Sometimes, however, temptation of direct plunder is found to have been resisted with an eye to more substantial gains expected to accrue otherwise. So, when 'Umar conquered as-Sawd (south Irq), he proceeded to take a census with a view to dividing its land-holdings among the Muslims. But 'Al dissuaded him from confiscating these as booty, on the plea that the nonMuslim cultivators would prove a better source of income as Jizyah- and Kharj-payers.26 What was the rate of Jizyah? The Qur'n gives no guidance in this behalf. The Prophet levied Jizyah usually at the rate of one dnr (five rupees) and one jarb (about 20 kilograms) of wheat per major male and female. In al-BaHrn, however, he made a compromise on half the quantity of dates and coms.27 'Umar, the second Caliph, established three grades of Jizyah: 1. Rupees six on major workers, cultivators, and artisans 2. Rupees twelves on the middle classes

3. Rupees twenty-four on the rich. He exempted children, women, old persons, and monks from Jizyah. In addition to Jizyah, cultivators of the countryside had to pay Kharj (land-tax) also, and inhabitants of uncolonised suburbs of cities had to make provisions of ration, olive oil, honey and vinegar for Muslim armies stationed there. His Egyptian governor, 'Amar bin al-'S added clothing to the list and increased the rate of Jizyah from six rupees to ten rupees, extorting ration etc. at a higher rate into the bargain. Later, under 'Umar's own dispensation, the rate of Jizyah for Syria, Irq, and Egypt was increased to twenty rupees plus a lot of provisions in kind at a highly enhanced rate and hosting of Muslim wayfarers and armies for three days. 28 It was also made incumbent upon the Jizyah-payers of Irq to guard the paths and bridges and repair these at their own cost. The loss sustained by these Dhimm-s consequent upon movement of Muslim armies was never compensated for.29 During 'Umar's time, a trade and commerce tax called 'Ushur was also levied on the Dhimm-s.30 Till the time of the fourth Caliph, 'Al, eight sources of revenue to the state exchequer had come into vogue: 1. Spoils of war/booty/plunder (anfal/ghanmah) 2. Jizyah 3. Kharj (land-tax) 4. Fai' (tax due in respect of a treaty) 5. 'Ushur or the tithes (trade and commerce tax) 6. Sawfiyy (estates and villages deserted by non-Muslim in the event of attack by Muslim armies or left by the former after death, set apart for the Caliph) 7. The farms and oases of Ban NaDr, Fadak, Khaybar, and Mecca, the income from which accrued to the Muslim state from the time of the Prophet 8. Zakt The Umayyads added certain minor sources of revenue to the list. Out of these, Muslims came ultimately to bear the burden of only the following: 1. Zakt, 2. Kharj, usually but not always, in the event of retaining their land after conversion to Islam. 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Azz exempted the Khursnites from Kharj on their conversion to Islam.31 3. An infinitesimal part of 'Ushur, leaving all else to the Dhimm-s. Ab Ysuf prescribes Kharj on Dhimm-s at double the rate thereof on Muslims.32 As regards Zakt, which is flaunted as a liability upon Muslims juxtaposed to Jizyah, it is noteworthy that, though Muslims were expected to pay 40% of their total income of a whole year as Zakt, yet it ceased to be irksome inasmuch as 1. it wa s not realized by the state, at any rate the way Jizyah was, 2. it was meant for charitable purposes, 3. it was supposed to earn religious merit (thawb), and 4. it was a matter of individual conscience.

Thus, Jizyah implies and involves a lot more than the so-called paltry sum of a few rupees yearly per taxable head. It opens the door to unlimited exploitation, and addition of insult to injury, into the bargain. It kept Dhimm-s exposed to victimization when the state stood in need of money. On the towns surrendering by peaceful treaties, such as Hir, Ullays, 'Ayn at-Tamr, and Banqiyah in south Iraq (as-Sawd), and Damascus, Bala'bakk, HimS, and Jerusalem in Syria, imposition of collective Jizyah became the order of the day, so much so that, while those who died or became Muslims were freed of Jizyah, the sum total of Jizyah on each town remained constant, the remaining Dhimm-s bearing the burden of the Jizyah paid earlier by the deceased while alive and the converts to Islam before their conversion. For instance, by death or conversion the population of Najrniyyah, founded in Irq by the Christians of Najrn on being driven out of their homeland by the Arabs, dwindled, but neither Mu'wiyyah nor others would easily reduce the quantum of Jizyah. YaHy bin dam (757-818) rules: 'All of them are charged with whatever was peaceably agreed upon, taking into consideration their ability to pay from their properties and lands, but nothing will be deducted following death or conversion to Islam of any of them, as the whole should be collected from the rest in accordance with their ability to pay and to be charged.'33 'Umar bin 'Abd al-'Azz had the conscience to abolish the cruel system and enforced a uniform rule that each Dhimm had to pay Jizyah on his own head. 34 On the other side, when the burden of the ever-increasing liability for the others' Jizyah on the Dhimm-s became intolerable, Hajjj bin Yusf, the governor of Iraq, reimposed Jizyah on the converts. Sometimes, assessees of Jizyah found themselves under the painful necessity of selling their women and children to be able to pay Jizyah. Accordingly, 'Amar bin al-'S levied collective Jizyah of thirteen thousand dnrs on the residents of Barqah near Alexandria and gave them the option of raising money by selling their women and children for payment of Jizyah.35 The classical jurist-theologians give us the Covenant of 'Umar, preserved in the form of a letter submitted by the Christians of Syria as Dhimm-s to Ab 'Ubaydah, which 'Umar ratified. The letter contains the following terms, ostensibly on behalf of the Christians: 1. 'not to build in Damascus and its environs church, convent, chapel, monk's hermitage; 2. 'not to repair what is dilapidated of our churches nor any of them that are in Muslim quarters; 3. 'not to withhold our churches from Muslims stopping there by night or day; 4. 'to open doors to the traveller and the wayfarer; 5. 'not to shelter there nor in our houses a spy, not to hide one who is a traitor to the Muslims; 6. 'to beat the nqs only gently in our churches; 7. 'not to display a cross on them; 8. 'not to raise our voices in prayer or chanting in our churches; 9. 'not to carry in procession a cross or our book; 10. 'not to take our Easter or Psalm Sunday processions; 11. 'not to raise our voices over our dead, nor to show fires with them in the markets of the Muslims, nor bring our funerals near them; 12. 'not to sell wine nor parade idolatry in companies of Muslims; 13. 'not to entice a Muslim to our religion nor invite him to it;

14. 'not to keep slaves who have been the property of Muslims; 15. 'not to prevent any relative from entering Islam if he wishes it; 16. 'to keep our religion wherever we are; 17. 'not to resemble the Muslims in wearing the qalansuwah (hat of a Greek priest), the turban, shoes, nor in the parting of the hair, nor in the way of riding; 18. 'not to use their language nor be called by their names; 19. 'to cut the hair in front and divide our forelocks; 20. 'to tie the zunnr round our waists; 21. 'not to engrave Arabic on our seals; 22. 'not to ride our saddles; 23. 'not to keep arms nor put them in our houses nor wear swords; 24. 'to honour Muslims in their gatherings, to guide them on the road, to stand up in public meetings when they wish it; 25. 'not to make our houses highter than theirs; 26. 'not to teach our children the Koran; 27. 'not to be partners with a Muslim except in business; 28. 'to entertain every Muslim traveller in our customary style and feed them in it three days; 29. 'We will not abuse a Muslim and he who strikes a Muslim has forfeited his rights.'36 All the four leaders of Muslim law agree that no new construction of places of worship by Dhimm-s is permissible in cities and big towns of Dr al-Islm. Those other than Imm Ab Hanfah do not permit such construction anywhere else as well. Imm Ab Hanfah permits it to scripturaries at a distance at least of one mile from the fortifications of a town. Imms other than Imm AHmad ibn Hanbal permit repairs of churches and synagogues in case their site had been gifted to the Dhimm-s. Ibn Hanbal appears generally to be opposed to repairs of all kinds, though he sometimes opines otherwise also. The Dhimm suffered from legal disabilities as well, in matters of testimony, criminal law, marriage, inheritance, etc. He could not inherit from a Muslim. In the event of his wife's conversion, he was required to be converted or to divorce her. If he was employed in the army, he could get allowances but no legal share in the spoils ( ghanmah).37 Besides, there were certain extra-constitutional disabilities and indignities to which the Dhimm-s were subjected without scruples. Muslims used to gather fruits from the former's orchards and gardens, pastured their cattle on their fields, took begr from them. Zayd bin Sa'sa'ah told the governor of BaSrah (3640 A.H.) that Muslims knocked at the doors of Dhimm-s, and, if the doors were not opened, broke them open, took out the coats therein, and slaughtered them for food at will. 38 Indeed, nonMuslims found Jizyah as the most degrading of the disabilities and indignities under the Muslim rule. That is why many non-Muslim rulers and tribes were prepared to open the doors of their treasuries to the Muslim armies but shuddered to think of paying Jizyah. The offer of the Byzantine governor to the Muslims referred to above is an instance in point. Indeed, in history the dread of Jizyah on the part of the non-Muslims consisted in not only the quantum of the tax and of all other discriminatory fiscal liabilities that it implies but also and more so in its being a

symbol of utter servility and abject surrender and subjection demonstrated by the procedure, written and unwritten, laid down for paying Jizyah and thereby becoming a Dhimm.39 We have seen that sometimes liability to pay Jizyah did not cease even after conversion. A strange phenomenon indeed. But a stranger phenomenon is the plight of neo-Muslims even if not assessed to Jizyah. Even after conversion to Islam, a non-Arab continued to suffer a number of humiliations and disabilities. Under the Umayyads, no non-Arab convert to Islam could marry an Arab girl. Under Hajjj bin Ysuf's dispensation, no such convert could lead the prayer assembly in a mosque in al-Kfah, nor could he be appointed as a judge ( qD). In many matters he was ill-treated like a Dhimm. Non-Arab converts to Islam were called Mawl (singular Mawl), like manumitted slaves, who, too, were called Mawl. We cannot go into details here. Suffice it to add that, in his Murawwaj adh-Dhahab, Mas'd quotes a verse to the effect that 'Whoever wants to see degradation, infamy, and disgrace cumulatively at one place would do well to see a Mawl.' Till the conquest of Mecca by the Prophet in 8 A.H., there had been no concept of non-Muslim subjects. There were only treaties with non-Muslims on specific terms and conditions. The idea of their subject-hood came to the fore thereafter, with Jizyah. Non-Muslims could become part of the protectorate under Muslims and save their life and property to a given extent and their religion, too, to some extent by paying Jizyah. The non-Muslims so protected, called Dhimm-s, were not citizens - yes, neither first-class citizens nor second-class citizens - but miserable subjects of the Muslim state, with no political rights, or even fundamental rights worth the name. Maududi writes: 'During the times of the Prophet and the 'legitimate' Caliphs, no example is available of a Dhimm having been appointed as a member of the Advisory Council ( majlis-i shr), a governor of some region, a judge of some place, a minister or administrator of some department, or a commander of some army, or of a Dhimm having been given an opportunity to take part in the selection of a Caliph; although Dhimm-s did exist during the age of the Prophet, and during the times of the legitimate caliphs their population ran into crores.'40 Indeed, Dhimm-s were just a tolerated mass managing their own affairs according to a schedule imposed upon them against their will. There is, however, a silver lining in the dark cloud. Sometimes, Jizyah was refunded in the event of the Muslims leaving the Dhimm-s to fend for and defend themselves against the onslaught of a superior power. When, for example, Ab 'Ubaydah gave way to Heraclius in HimS (Syria), he is said to have refunded the Jizyah collected by him from the Dhimm-s of the city, on the ground that he was no longer in a position to protect them from their enemies, even though the Dhimm-s protested that they preferred the Muslims' to the Greeks' rule.41 C. H. Beeker and L. Caetani reject this story, however, on the ground that the Arabs at that period had not the intelligence to make the connection between tribute and protection. Caetani thinks it unlikely that the Arabs could have collected Jizyah during the period of the Greek occupation. 42 But Denett refers to ,an anonymous Syrian chronicle, which tells us that during the period before the battle of Yarmk the tribute of Damascus as well was refunded.'43 It is also noteworthy that the Christian tribe of al-Jarjimah in the neighbourhood of Antioch were exempted from Jizyah and required to take part in Jihd.44 It must, however, be borne in mind that, such exceptions apart, Dhimm-s could hardly consider it morally imperative to cooperate with the Muslims in the latter's bid to exterminate the former's own religions and communities. The war fought by the Muslims was far from being an ordinary

war; it was a war often against what the Dhimm-s held dear. In such a war no non-Muslim would like to side with the Muslims, unless he chooses to turn a traitor to his own religion. And, if the Muslims do find such a one, they would naturally welcome him. Exemption from Jizyah is nothing compared with the stakes involved. And the fact that the Muslims did succeed in finding such Dhimm-s on occasion serves to betray the amount of torture the latter must have been subjected to, turning them practically against themselves to enable them to heave just a sigh of relief. Let us wind up the discussion with a quotation from a contemporary writer on the Islamic law of war and peace: 'The question has been raised as to whether it is not inconsistent with Islam's objective, seeking ultimate supremacy of the true religion, to accept payment in money for persistence in unbelief. Sarkhas45 held that the object is not pecuniary consideration, but the invitation of unbelievers to Islam in the most gentle manner. By being allowed to live among Muslims, the dhimm-s will be attracted by the beauties of the Muslim faith, and they may willingly accept it.'46

Footnotes:
Daniel C. Denett, Conversion and Poll Tax in Early Islam, Historical Monographs, No.XXII (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950).
1 2

Shibli Nu'mani, 'Al-Jizyah', Ras 'I-i-Shibl (Delhi: Rahmani Press, n.d.), p. 76. Denett, p. 15. Ibid., pp. 45-55. Al-Tawbah (9) 29. Al-An'm (6) 157.

According to M.J. Kister, 'yad' signifies wealth, ability, or resources, vide Arabica, XI (1964), p. 278. M.M. Braymann takes it to mean 'benefaction', vide his The Spiritual Background of Early Islam (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1972), pp. 199-212. Though these meanings do fall within the signification of the term as used in pre-Islamic poetry, its interpretation in the Qur'nic context appears to be unwarrantably far-fetched, involving translation of the term 'Jizyah' in the second case as reward.
7 8

At-Tawbah (9) 3. See Ibn Hishm, pp. 655 ff.

Bukhari, II, Kitb al-Jihd wa 's-Siyar, Hadth-s 300, 405, pp. 144, 196; Kitb alMaghz, Hadth 1557, p. 694.
10 11

cf. al-Anfl (8) 41, 69.

Mujaddid-i Alf-i Thr, Maktbt-i Imm-i Rabbn (Kanpur: Nawalkishore Press. n.d.), I, Letter No. 163, p. 166.
12 13

Maryam (19) 28. qaliqan baTni-h waDnu-h jannu-h

Ilay-ka taghdu Mu'arriDan fi Mukhlifan dna 'n-NaSr dinu-h

14

In translating it we are guided by the translation of the Tabaqt Ibn Sa'd, III, p. 148.
15

l 'Imrn (3) 59. Muslim, II, Kitb al-db, Hadth 502. l 'Imrn (3) 61.

16

17

Anmad bin YaHy bin Jbir ash-Shabr bi 'I-Baldhur, usually referred to as alBaldhur, FutH al-Buldn, Urdu tr. by Sayyid Abu 'I-Khayr Mawdudi (Karachi: Nafis Academy, 1962), pp. 106 ff.; Imm Ab Ysuf, Kitb al-Kharj, pp. 72-73.
18 19

Ibid., pp. 110-113. Ibid., pp. 268-271. Denett, p. 86. Al-Baldhur, p. 205. Al-Anfl (8) 41; al-FatH (48) 15.

20

21

22

23

Shibli Nu'mani, Sratu 'n-Nabiyy, III, ed. & enlarg. by Sulayman Nadwi (3rd impression, Azamgarh: Daru 'I-Musannifn, 1339 A.H.), p. 528.
24

YaHy bin dam (757-818 A.D.), Kitb al-Kharj, ed. & tr. under the title Taxation in Islam by A.ben Shemesh (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1958), Art. 49-50, p. 3 1.
25 26

Al-Baldhur, p. 382. Ibid., p. 129.

27

Khrushid Ahmad Fariq, Trkh-i Islm (Delhi: Jamal Printing Press, n.d.), pp. 80,116,120,
28 29

Ibid., p. 121. Ibid., p. 133. Al-Baldhur, p. 606. Ibid., p. 132. YaHy bin dam, Art 20, p. 26. Al-Baldhur, pp. 111-112. Ibid., p. 324.

30

31

32

33

34

35

Ibn 'Askir, Trkh,I, p. 149, tr. in A.S. Tritton, The Caliphs and Their Muslim Subjects (London, 1930), pp. 6-8. There are other versions, given in Tritton, pp. 5-6. 'Shfi' gives perhaps the most elaborate text, embodying the provisions of the Covenant of 'Umar, which he suggests should be the model treaty between a Muslim ruler and scripturaries. See Shf', Kitb al-Umm, IV, p. 118. For a translation of this text see Tritton, op. cit., pp. 12-16.' Majid Khadduri, War and Peace in the Law of Islam (Baltimore: John Hopkins Press, 1955), p. 194, fn.
36

Shf', IV, p. 177, and Mward, Kitb al-AHkm as-SulTniyyah, pp. 250-251, cited in Khadduri, p. 198.
37 38

Fariq, p. 570.

Even a mystic-philosopher like al-Ghazzl prescribes a harsh enough procedure for realizing Jizyah, vide his Kitb al-Wajz, II, p. 200.
39

Abu 'I-A'l Maudd, Islm Riysat (2nd impression, Lahore: Dacca: Karachi: Islamic Publications Ltd., under the auspices of Idrah-i Ma'rif-i Islm, 1967), p. 353.
40 41

Al-Baldhur, pp. 206-207. Denett, pp. 56-57. Ibid., p. 57. Al-Baldhur, p. 237. As-Sarkhas, Kitb al-MabsT, X, p. 77, cited in Khadduri, p. 177. Khadduri, p. 177.

42

43

44

45

46

APPENDIX 1

Malaysia Hindus Protest Christian "Sadhu"

On November 8th and 9th, about 1,000 Hindus gathered at the Methodist Church in Brickfields, Kuala Lumpur to protest and confront the Pentecostal Christian, "Sadhu Chellapah," who was making his third visit to Malaysia. An active propagator of the Christian faith in Malaysian estate and rural areas, he wears the orange robes (kavi) of Hindu monk and styles himself as a Sadhu (Hindu term for a wandering monk). The "Sadhu" declined a challenge to public debate with members of the Malaysian Hindu Sangam and the Sri Maha Mariyamman Temple over his statements on Hindus scriptures. In his speeches, video cassettes and cassette tapes, "Sadhu" condemns, ridicules and misinterprets the Vedas, Upanishads and the Tirumurais to suit and explain his Christian faith. For instance, he interprets the mantra "Panchakaya Namaha" as "Lord with five wounds" meaning the crucified Jesus and the Rig Vedic phrase "Ekam Tat Sat" as "the One Lord who descends to earth only once," again implying Jesus. At a meeting showing a video-tape by him containing his unreasonable interpretations and interpolations of the Hindu scriptures angry Hindus bombarded him with questions and demanded a public apology. Shaken by the raving crowd, some of whom promised him a coffin for his next visit, the "Sadhu" went up on stage and tendered his public apology. However, three days later prior to his departure back to India, he summoned a press conference and said he made his apology under duress, hoping to avoid unwanted incidents. Dr. Thomas Thangaraj, a Protestant from India who was in Kuala Lumpur as a delegate for the Second International Saiva Siddhanta Seminar was asked for his views about Sadhu Chellapah. He said "You can't interpret Hindu scriptures in such a way to suit Christianity, which is wrong and unfortunate. People are so gullible that they would swallow anything you say, it's part of psychology." The Chairman of the Maha Mariyamman Temple, Mr. V.L. Kodivel said he will complain to the Prime Minister and the Home Affairs Minister.

Footnotes:

Hinduism Today, Indian Ocean Edition, February-March, 1987.

CHAPTER 4

Mission's Volte-Face vis-a-vis Hindu Culture

The mission's new-found love for Hindu culture is a sham. It is neither spontaneous nor sincere at any point. On the contrary, it remains forced, calculated and contrived throughout. Examined closely, it is no more than a thin veneer that cracks at the very first probe. The language of Indigenisation indicates no change of heart on the mission's part vis-a-vis Hindu culture. All that we learn, as we read between the lines, is that the mission is shifting its strategy in a changed situation. The rising tide of resistance to Christianity in the wake of the freedom movement had frightened the mission out of its wits. The dawn of independence drove it into a panic. The need for Indigenisation was felt by the mission for the first time when it was gripped with fear for its future. It soon realized that the new ruling class in India was its admirer rather than its adversary. Yet it felt that it could still do with some cold-blooded camouflage for furthering its designs and disarming opposition to it at the popular level. The formulas which the mission has been coming forward with, in the years since independence, are not at all new. The fraud which had been practised secretly by Robert De Nobili in the first half of the seventeenth century, was proposed publicly by a number of noted Hindu converts in the second half of the nineteenth. In fact, these converts had gone much farther. They had advocated that the disguising of the gospel should not remain confined to the dress and demeanour of missionaries, the style of mission stations, and the language of liturgy, sacraments and sacred hymns. The operation, they had pleaded, should be extended to the field of theology as well. The Theology of Fulfillment which the mission flaunts at present and which Fr. Bede Griffiths and his two predecessors at the Saccidanand Ashram have expounded with extraordinary zeal, was formulated in the first instance by these Hindu converts. The Hindus converts had not made their contributions out of love for their country or culture. They were alienated from both. It was their fascination for European ways, including European religion, which had led them into the Christian fold. They had become champions of Hindu culture only when the mission turned down with contempt their claim to be treated as more equal than the other natives. Their recommendation that Christianity should be clothed in Hindu culture had been their way of scoring over the foreign missionaries whom they accused of compromising the Christian cause in India by presenting the gospel in a foreign garb. The psychology of these converts is a fascinating subject. They were trying to out-mission the mission itself. But that is a different story. For the present we are dealing with the genesis of Indigenisation. Today, the mission is holding up these half dozen Hindu converts as its prized heroes. They are being hailed as pioneers of indigenous Christianity, paragons of patriotism, and dogged defenders of Hindu culture. The mission has even developed a complaint that these "great men" and their "sterling contributions" to "Indian causes" are not getting the place they deserve in Indian history. But in their own life-time the same mission had scolded and snubbed these Hindu converts, even disowned and denounced them as villains. They had been commanded by the mission to get cured of their "nationalist malady", and told in no uncertain terms that nationalism had no place in a universal religion like Christianity. The volte-face which the mission has staged with regard to these men speaks volumes about the mission's mentality and methods.

The mission had remained convinced for a long time that Christianity as propounded, preached and practised in Europe was the since qua non for all Hindu converts. It had tried its best to impose that model on India, first with the help of Portugal's armed power and later on with the aid of the awe inspired by Britain's imperial prestige. It had frowned upon every departure from that model as tantamount to heresy or worse. The foreign missionaries who had flocked towards India like locusts towards a green field were hostile to Hindu culture which they rightly regarded as an expression of Hindu religion. They had harangued Hindu converts to shed all vestiges of their ancestral culture. Every convert was expected to ape the European Christian in all spheres of life. Mahatma Gandhi has mentioned in his autobiography the case "of a well-known Hindu" converted to Christianity. "It was the talk of the town," he writes, "that when he was baptised, he had to eat beef and drink liquor, that he also had to change his clothes and thenceforward he began to go about in European costume including a hat."1 Furthermore, the mission had made no secret of the low esteem in which it held the natives of every description. A conference of foreign missionaries held at Calcutta in, 1855 had proclaimed that the natives were known for "their deficiency in all those qualities which constitute manliness".2 It is true that English-educated and high-caste Hindu converts were prized by the mission. But only for purposes of publicity. They proved, if a proof was needed, the superiority of Christianity over Hinduism. But if any Hindu convert acquired inflated notions about his intrinsic worth or his standing with the mission, he had to be put in his proper place. In 1856, Alexander Duff had denounced his own protege, Lal Behari Dey, as the "ring leader of cabal" when the latter, along with two other Hindu converts, requested for admission to the Committee of the Scottish Church Mission in Calcutta. The message which the mission had sent out to Hindu converts had gone home. Most of them had accepted their servile role in studied silence. Some of them had felt frustrated and expressed bitterness. But only in private. Nehemiah Goreh, a Brahmin convert from Maharashtra, would confess at the end of his career that he often "felt like a man who had taken poison". 3 Only a few like Kali Charan Banerjea continued with open criticism of foreign missionaries who, they said, were endangering the mission. But the mission was not impressed by this native fervour for the faith. Another conference of foreign missionaries held at Allahabad in 1872 noted with concern that "many or most of the 'educated native Christians' are showing feelings of 'bitterness, suspicion or dislike' towards the European missionaries" and "warned these radicals that as long as the native church was economically dependent on European funds, it would be more proper for them to display patience with regard to independence".4 The classic case of what the mission could do to a defiant Hindu convert was that of Brahmabandhab Upadhay. He was the one who went farthest in advocating that Christianity should be clothed in Hindu culture. He was also the most comprehensive and persistent in his prescriptions till he was hounded out of the Church. At present he is given the lion's share of space in the literature of Indigenisation. The Catholic Church is today crowning him with posthumous laurels. The trinity from Tannirpalli-Jules Monchanin, Henri Le Saux and Bede Griffiths-have only repeated what Brahmabandhab had said and done long ago. His story, therefore, deserves a detailed treatment. Brahmabandhab's Hindu name was Bhawani Charan Banerjea. He was a nephew of Kali Charan Banerjea, an early Christian convert, who exercised a deep influence on him at his village home. In 1880, Brahmabandhab came in contact with Narendra Nath Datta. Both of them had joined the Brahmo Samaj (Nababidhan) of Keshab Chandra Sen and imbibed the latter's ardent admiration

for Jesus Christ. But their ways parted when Narendra Nath came under the influence of Sri Ramakrishna and emerged as Swami Vivekananda. The Swami became a devout Hindu and informed critic of Christianity. Brahmabandhab, on the other hand, came more and more under the spell of Jesus and joined the Catholic Church in 1891. Even so, Vivekananda continued to fascinate his old friend who tried to do for Christianity what Vivekananda had done for Hinduism. Bhawani Charan took the name Theophilus when he was baptised at Hyderabad in Sindh where he had gone as a school teacher and Brahmo Samaj preacher. He translated the Greek name into Sanskrit and became Brahmabandhab, the Friend of God. For the next few years he travelled in Sindh and the Punjab and elsewhere, defending Christianity and attacking Hinduism, particularly the philosophy of Advaita which he denounced as the "deadly swamp of Vedanta" and "the Vedantic delusive poison". He entered into public debates with Arya Samaj preachers and tried to counter the influence which Annie Besant had come to exercise against Christianity. He also wrote a tract in refutation of rationalism which was becoming popular among India's intellectual elite and damaging the Christian cause rather seriously. He started a monthly magazine, Sophia, in January 1894. "When the idea was proposed to Fr. Bruder, the parish priest of Karachi," writes his devoted disciple and biographer, "he [the priest] smiled at it. How could a layman and a recent convert at that undertake to edit a Catholic Monthly?"5 Fr. Bruder was being polite. He did not want to say that a native convert was not qualified to write on philosophical or theological themes. Brahmabandhab could start the magazine only when the Jesuit Mission at Bombay recommended his case. By now Brahmabandhab had heard of the impact which Vivekananda had made at the Parliament of Religions in Chicago. Hindus all over India were feeling elated while Christian missionaries were shocked that a native from an enslaved country should have the audacity to address a Christian audience and that, too, in a Christian country. Brahmabandhab decided immediately to become a Vivekananda for the propagation of the Christian gospel. He put on the ochre robe of a Hindu sannyasin and styled himself Upadhay, the Teacher. "Indian bishops," he wrote in the Sophia of October 1894, "should combine together and establish a central mission... The itinerant missionaries should be thoroughly Hindu in their mode of life. They should, if necessary, be strict vegetarians and teetotallers, and put on the yellow sannyasi garb. In India, a Sannyasi preacher commands the greatest respect. The central mission should, in short, adopt the policy of the glorious old Fathers of the South."6 The reference was to Robert De Nobili and his successors at Madurai. But, like De Nobili before him, Brahmabandhab had counted without his superiors in the mission. "In forming the idea of becoming a Sannyasi," writes his biographer, "Bhavani did not consult with the authorities. The first day he appeared in the Church of Hyderabad in the garic gown, Fr. Salinger took exception and had him leave the Church. Quietly he repaired to the Presbytery and changed his dress." Brahmabandhab appealed to the Archbishop of Bombay but the latter was not in a mood to listen till Brahmabandhab quoted the precedent from Madurai. He was then granted a special permission. "The ordinary people," continues his biographer, "did not like this. They could not take the idea of a Christian in the garb of a Sannyasi. Some saw in it nothing but a clever trick to catch the unwary among the Hindus. Upadhay wore therefore a petty cross of ebony to distinguish himself from the other Sannyasis. Even this did not silence their malicious tongues."7

Vivekananda had stopped at Madras on his return from abroad early in 1897, and his speeches had left large audiences spellbound. Brahmabandhab appealed to the Archbishop of Bombay that he be allowed to undertake a tour of the South so that Vivekananda's spell in that area could be broken. The Bishop of Trichinopoly played the host. At Madras, Brahmabandhab made it a point to stay with the same gentleman who had housed Vivekananda. He visited several places in the Madras Presidency and made many speeches. His biographer does not tell us what impact he made and where. Meanwhile, he noticed that the stock of Hindu philosophy had risen in the eyes of the people who had attended Vivekananda's lectures or read his writings. He also realised from the Hindu response to his own lectures that it was difficult to refute Hindu philosophy. The man had a practical mind. He started proposing that Hindu philosophy should be made to serve Christian theology. "Christianity", he wrote in the Sophia of July 1897, "has again after a long period come in contact with a philosophy which, though it may contain errors-because the Hindu mind is synthetic and speculative-still unquestionably soars higher than her western sister. Shall we, Catholics of India, now have it made their weapon against Christianity or shall we look upon it in the same way as St. Thomas looked upon the Aristotelian system? We are of the opinion that attempts should be made to win over Hindu philosophy to the service of Christianity as Greek philosophy was won over in the Middle Ages." He did not yet know how to do this and also felt that the operation involved dangers for the Christian dogma. "But we have a conviction," he continued, "and it is growing day by day that the Catholic Church will find it hard to conquer India unless she makes Hindu philosophy hew wood and draw water for her." 8 No one could accuse Brahmabandhab of not being frank and forthright. Brahmabandhab reached Calcutta towards the end of 1897 in order to feel for himself the atmosphere which Vivekananda's return from abroad had created in Bengal. He was staggered. He learnt at the same time that Vivekananda was planning to create a sannyasin order of Hindu missionaries and establish a monastery in some secluded spot for contemplation on and development of Hindu thought. He came out immediately with the plan of a Catholic monastery. "Several bishops and missionary priests," he proclaimed in the Sophia of May 1898, "do not only share with us this conviction but have promised encouragement. It should be conducted on strictly Hindu lines with two classes of monks, contemplative and itinerant. There should not be the least trace of Europeanism in the mode of life and living of the Hindu Catholic monks. The Parivrajakas (itinerants) should be well versed in the Vedanta philosophy as well as in the philosophy of St. Thomas... We intend making an intensive tour through India and, if necessary, through Europe and America, to appeal to the Pastors, apostolic missionaries and all the faithful to cooperate with our humble selves in the arduous task of inaugurating the monastic life in India. The ancient land of the Aryans is to be won over to the Catholic Faith, and who can achieve the conquest, but the Hindu Catholic sannyasis inspired with the spirit of the ancient monks?"9 A new note now entered in the voice of Brahmabandhab. He started calling on the Hindu converts to retain their Hindu culture in order to prove that Hindus culture could find its fulfilment only in Christianity. "By birth," he wrote in the Sophia of July 1898, "we are Hindus and shall remain Hindus till death. But as dvija (twice-born) by virtue of our sacramental rebirth, we are members of an indefectible communion embracing all ages and climes... The more strictly we practise our universal faith, the better do we grow as Hindus . All that is noblest and best in the Hindu character, is developed in us by the genial inspiration of Narahari (God-man) 10

our pattern and guide. The more we love him, the more we love our country , the prouder we become of our past glory." Thus a new type of Hindu was on the anvil. "In short," concluded Brahmabandhab, "so far as our physical and mental constitution is concerned we are Hindus, but in regard to our immortal soul we are Catholics. We are Hindu Catholics."11 A new type of Catholicism was also in the crucible. "The European clothes of the Catholic religion," he wrote in the Sophia of August 1898, "should be removed as early as possible. It must put on the Hindu garment to be acceptable to the Hindus. This transformation can be effected only by the hands of Indian missionaries preaching the holy faith in the Vedantic language, holding devotional meetings in the Hindu way and practising the virtue of poverty conformably to Hindu asceticism. When the Catholic church in India will be dressed up in Hindu garments then will our countrymen perceive that she elevated man to the universal kingdom of truth by stooping down to adapt herself to racial peculiarities."12 The proposal fired other missionary minds and was discussed in the Catholic press in India and Ceylon. He revised his theology also when he learned that Advaita had become the foundation of Vivekananda's call for revitalizing Hinduism. He quickly dropped his earlier diatribes against Vedanta and fell back on the "deep insights" of his Brahmo guru, Keshab Chandra Sen. The prophet of the new Dispensation (Nababidhan) had read the Upanishdic message, aham brahmo'smi in Christ's saying, "I and my Father are one". He had stated in a lecture delivered in 1882 that "The Trinity of Christian Theology corresponds strikingly with the Saccidananda of Hinduism" - Sat being the Father, Cit being the Son, and Ananda being the Holy Spirit. Brahmabandhab published in the Sophia of October of 1898 his hymn to Saccidananda composed in Sanskrit and translated into English. The transition from an opponent of Vedanta to that of its supporter was smooth, and caused no intellectual qualms in the Catholic thinker. It was not long before, Brahmabandhab launched his project in a practical manner. He announced in the Sophia of January 1899 that the Catholic Monastery or the Kastalik Matha "will be located on the Narmada" and "placed under the protection and guidance of the Bishop of Nagpur". 13 He had now very little time for his monthly and the Sophia ceased publication after the FebruaryMarch issue of 1899. Along with two other Catholic sannyasins, Brahmabandhab set up a small ashram on the Narmada near the Marble Rocks of Jubblepore. He had already issued an appeal in the Sophia inviting Catholic young men to come and become inmates of the ashram. This nucleus was to grow into a fullfledged monastery in due course. Brahmabandhab spent the Lenten season of 1899 on a hill, fasting and praying for the success of his enterprise. But, once again, he had counted without his superiors. The young candidates who consulted the mission before joining the ashram were told that the scheme had not been granted ecclesiastical approval. The Bishop of Nagpur suddenly withdrew his support, and the ashram collapsed before the year 1899 was out. The facts as they came to light in due course were revealing. The Bishop of Nagpur had referred the scheme to the Archbishop of Bombay who in turn had brought it to the notice of the Delegate Apostolic, the Pope's representative and supreme authority of the Catholic Church in India. The Delegate Apostolic strongly opposed the scheme and sent it with his critical comments to the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda at Rome. The Congregation agreed with him and turned it down. That was in September 1898, several months before Brahmabandhab set up his ashram on the Narmada. But he was not informed of what was going on behind the scenes, nor given an opportunity to defend his stand. When the facts became known, he felt he had been stabbed in the back. He had to wind up the ashram if he wanted to go on appeal to the Pope. This he did and

travelled to Bombay on his way to Rome. But he fell seriously ill and the voyage was abandoned. All his dreams of clothing Catholicism in Hindu garments had come to nought. Brahmabandhab now moved to Calcutta and set up a small and less publicised ashram in a small house where a few disciples from Sindh joined him. Day after day, he sat on a tiger skin spread on the floor and "chafed at the Westernisation of Christianity and the adopting of Western ways by Indian Christians".14 On June 16, 1900 he launched a new journalistic venture, the Weekly Sophia. His earlier experience had made him cautious. "Our policy precludes us," he wrote on September 8, "from making our paper the organ of any existing religious body... It will supply a new garb to the religion of Christ without affecting in the least the Christian tenets."15 The journal broadened its scope and devoted some space to politics, literature and sociology. The Delegate Apostolic, however, was vigilant about this wayward sheep in his flock. He wrote to the Archbishop of Calcutta, disapproving of what Brahmabandhab was writing. The Archbishop made Brahmabandhab resign from editorship of the magazine. But the Delegate Apostolic was not satisfied and the next step he took was drastic. He addressed a letter to the Archbishop of Madras objecting specifically to Brahmabandhab's declaration that the Weekly Sophia "will supply a new garb to the religion of Christ". Finally, he issued a public statement warning all Catholics "against associating with and reading the said periodical Sophia". 16 Brahmabandhab became defiant and resumed as editor of the paper. The delegate Apostolic placed the Weekly Sophia on the Index, which meant that Catholics were forbidden to subscribe to it, or read it, or have anything to do with it without permission from appropriate authorities in the Church. Brahmabandhab reversed his stand and offered to submit his writings to the Censor of the Catholic Church before publication. But the Delegate Apostolic refused to relent and the Weekly Sophia expired in December 1900. Brahmabandhab now tried a new strategy. He persuaded a Hindu friend to become the publisher of a monthly, The Twentieth Century, which came out in January 1901, and employed another Hindu as joint editor. As an extra precaution, he wrote his pieces under the nom de plume, Nara Hari Das (the slave of the God-man, that is, Jesus Christ). But once again "the axe that had felled the Jubblepore Math and the Weekly Sophia," 17 drove through his defences. The Delegate Apostolic was holidaying in Rome when he was informed by a bishop in India that the Sophia had reappeared under a new name. One June 20, 1901, he addressed an open letter to his flock in India stating that the "prohibition regarding the periodical Sophia is extended to the The Twentieth Century, and therefore all Catholics residing within the limits of our Delegation are forbidden to read, to subscribe to, and have any connection with the above said monthly review, The Twentieth Century".18 Brahmabandhab made a pathetic appeal for reconsideration of the case. It was published in the Catholic Examiner of Bombay on August 17, 1901. "My writings in the Sophia," he said, "have never been found to contain any error by the ecclesiastical authorities, but only my attempt to interpret Catholic dogmas through the Vedanta has been considered dangerous and misleading. If ever the ecclesiastical authorities point out errors in my writings I shall at once make submission to them, though I may reserve to myself the right to appeal to Rome, the final refuge of the faithful on earth, for I do believe in the formula - Roma locuta est causa finita est [Rome has spoken, the cause has ended]."19 The man who had boasted for years that he had broken the bonds of the Hindu social system was kowtowing to a totalitarian tyranny imposed from abroad. But his abject servility served no purpose, and the appeal fell on deaf ears. The new monthly met its demise without celebrating its first anniversary.

Yet Brahmabandhab remained undeterred in his devotion to the Catholic Church which he now chose to serve in another capacity. Vivekananda, the man whom Brahmabandhab had continued to ape in the service of a rival cause, died suddenly in July 1902. Brahmabandhab persuaded himself that the only thing which made Vivekananda rise to fame in foreign lands was the ochre robe of a sannyasin and that he himself could use the same robe for serving the Catholic creed. "Hearing of the death of Vivekananda in Howrah station," he confided to a friend, "I determined there and then to go to England and to continue his mission." 20 This was a misleading statement, but quite characteristic of the man who was trying his utmost to mislead his countrymen regarding their religion. He sailed for England in October 1902 with the help of money raised mostly by his Hindu friends. He went into ecstasy when he reached Rome. "As soon as I got down from the train," he wrote to another Catholic enthusiast in India, "I kissed the soil of Rome... I prayed at the tomb of St. Peter, The Rock, The Holder of the Keys - for India, for you all. While kissing the toe of St. Peter, my mind turned back to you because you had once told Mr. Redman how you could kiss that worn out toe a thousand times over and over again." He cherished a desire to meet the Pope but could not muster the courage to apply for an audience. "While kneeling down at the tomb of St. Peter," he consoled himself, "I thought of the Holy Father, the living St. Peter. Oh! how I longed to kneel at his feet and plead for India. I was shown from a distance the window of his apartments."21 The man who regarded Hinduism as idolatrous had succumbed to the most abominable idolatry known to human history. There was no limit to the depths to which this man was prepared to sink, willingly and without remorse. From Rome he went to London. One day, as he was being driven on a street of the imperial city, he heard that King Edward VII was soon to pass that way. "I am so fortunate," he confided to an Englishman, "I am to see the King today. To see the King spells virtue with us." 22 He saw the Hindu Goddess of Might incarnated in the British monarch. "While thus engaged," he wrote to a friend in India, "behold! King Edward appeared before my eyes. The carriage vanished out of sight in the twinkling of an eye but the scene filled my heart with joy. Maha Maya with her lightening-like smile had faded away. The great Shakti leaving her Himalayan lion had mounted the British lion instead. Who can understand the sport of the Maya of Maheshwari?"23 That was all the use he had for the great Goddess his ancestors had worshipped for ages untold. The man had become a moron. He visited Oxford and Cambridge, and tried to impress learned audiences with his inimitable insight into how Hinduism had prepared the way for Christianity. The attendance was never impressive or enthusiastic. The ladies he addressed in London found him disappointing. The press took no notice of him. Finally, on January 3, 1903, he wrote an article in The Tablet of London. "Since my conversion to the Catholic Faith," he said, "my mind has been occupied with the one sole thought of winning over India to the Holy Catholic Church. I have worked as a layman towards that end, and we are now a small band of converts ready to work in the vineyard of the Lord."24 The man who had sought salvation in Christianity had ended as a courtier to the biggest crime cartel in the world. He presented a picture of Christianity in India which was strikingly similar to the one which Fr. Bede Griffiths would present eighty years later. "What strikes every observer of the missionary field of work in India," he said, "is its frightful barrenness. It is unquestionable, and perhaps unquestioned too, that Christianity is not at all thriving in India. There it stand in the corner, like an exotic stunted plant with poor foliage, showing little or no promise of blossom. Conversions

are almost nil so far as the Hindu community is concerned. There are indeed conversions of famine-striken children, and also non-Aryans not within the pale of Hinduism, but these acquisitions too are not on a significant scale."25 He missed the point that Christianity was born as barren and has remained barren except occasionally when it succeeded in becoming parasitic on the creativity of other cultures. The quality of converts was poorer still. "The social and spiritual state of converts," he continued, "made during the Portuguese ascendancy does not present any more hopeful prospect. Three hundred years have passed away and not a single saint has India given to the altars of God. There has not been a single theologian, not even a philosopher, who has made any impression on the Christian science of Divinity. In the secular line we do not find among them leaders of thought to guide national deliberations. There has flourished no statesman, no historian, no thinker worth the name, to raise the status of the Indian Christian community. Strange to say even those who have shed lustre on India in modern times, have almost all of them, sprung from outside the Christian pale. The undesirable state of things cannot he attributed to political environment."26 He could have laboured a little more and given a count of the questionable characters which Christianity had produced in this country. In another article written in the same paper on January 31, 1903, he repeated his pet prescription for ensuring the rapid progress of Christianity in India. "To my mind," he wrote, "the best and the most congenial way of teaching Theism to the educated as well as to the non-educated in English will be through Hindu thought. Hindu thought may be made to serve the cause of Christianity in the same way in India as Greek thought was made to do in Europe. I can testify, if my personal experience is of any value, to the fact of some of the most educated men of our country giving up naturalistic Theism for the right one through my exposition of Vedantic philosophy."27 By theism he meant Christianity. Naturalistic theism, on the other hand, stood for Hinduism. One wonders if Brahmabandhab was aware that the house of Christianity in Europe had been in shambles since the French Revolution. The higher intelligentsia in the West had had its fill of the Bible and was looking for something which made moral and spiritual sense. That was why Vivekananda was a success and he an utter failure. His only biography provides no guidance in this respect. In any case, he returned to Calcutta in July 1903, deeply frustrated and bitter. His visit to England had turned out to be a damp squib. His biography also fails to chart out what went on in the inner recesses of Brahmabandhab's mind. His behaviour after his return from abroad became stranger and stranger with the passing of time. He had set up a school, Sarasvat Ayatan, in Calcutta in 1904. When the day for Sarasvat Pj dawned that year, he made his students worship an icon of the Goddess which he had installed. The Catholics were scandalised. His colleague, Animananda, who was to write his biography and eulogise him in later years, left the school in disgust. But the next thing which Brahmabandhab did was still more shocking. He defended Sri Krishna as an avatra in a public debate with Fr. J.N. Farquhar. Brahmabandhab had started a quarter anna daily paper named Sandhya. Day after day, he poured himself out in vehement attacks on everything Western. He saw in the British regime the rise of the Mleccha. "The gloom," he declared in the very first issue, "darkens. But wherein lies our emancipation? A peep into the past would give us a key to the problem. We are as though tethered to a past by a long rope. Wheresoever we go, through whatever vicissitudes we pass, the past remains and bound to it we stand. The self-same Veda, the Vedanta, the Brahmanas, the

Varna Dharma stand as a rock of hope to a Hindu. There is no other way." 28 He made no mention of Catholicism or Christianity. When the Partition of Bengal was announced in October 1905, Brahmabandhab jumped into the fray. His Sandhya made a strong and all-out attack not only on the British rule but also on Western imperialism as a whole-political, economic, and cultural. He invited the attention of the police before long. When searches made and minor cases filed failed to silence him, the government arrested him in the Sandhya Sedition Case on January 31, 1907. He was put in jail. Sandhya was suppressed in September that year. He was bailed out by his Hindu friends and the case came up in the court. But he fell ill and died on October 27, 1907. Two months before his death, in August 1907, he had administered a rude shock to the Christians in India. He had performed a pryaSchitta (repentance ceremony) for the sin of visiting the land of the Mlecchas and taking food with them. He went through the prescribed rites, even to the extent of eating a bit of cow-dung. Hindus concluded that he had ceased to be a Christian. So when he died, they cremated him with Hindu saMskras at a Hindu burning ght in Calcutta. The Catholic priest who came to claim his body for a Christian burial arrived too late. The Church which had hounded Brahmabandhab alive was out to save the soul of Brahmabandhab dead. Brahmabandhab had become a persona non grata for the Catholic Church while he was alive, but after his death in 1907, he was forgotten completely. It is only recently that he has been taken out of the limbo and passed as the pioneer of indigenous Christianity. The Catholic Church now takes considerable pains to prove that he was a believing Christian till the end. His Sarasvat Pj, his defence of Sri Krishna and his pryaSchitta are being explained away as external acts which he performed in order to demonstrate his conformity to Hindu culture but which did not affect his deep devotion to Jesus Christ as the one and only saviour. His persecution by the Church is being "repented" as a "mistake" made by the Church in an atmosphere when Christianity had not yet freed itself from its "colonial associations". The Protestant side of the Christian mission in India has started a similar search in its burial grounds. Hindu converts who had been ignored or insulted in an earlier period are being raised from the dead, and hailed as harbingers of Indigenisation. Now we hear a lot about Krishna Mohun Banerjea, Parni Andy, Kali Charan Banerjea, J.G. Shome, A.S. Appaswami Pillai and Sadhu Sunder Singh. All these converts are supposed to have tried, each in his own way, "to relate Hindu culture meaningfully to the message of Christianity". The mission has staged resurrection of those whom it had crucified earlier simply because they wanted the mission to make Hindu culture a vehicle of Christianity. The step is calculated to create the impression that the mission has acquired a sincere respect for Hindu culture. But the timing of the performance tells a different story. The mission started talking suddenly and loudly about the merits of Hindu culture only when it became clear to it that India was fast heading towards independence. The new political situation called for a new mission strategy. Moreover, the mission had reached a dead end because of resistance offered by resurgent Hinduism. The mission literature of the period when the mission was manoeuvering itself into the new position leaves little doubt that the mission was forced to revise its attitude towards Hindu culture not as a result of reflection but by compulsion of outer circumstances. The International Missionary Council (IMC), the Protestant section of the world-wide Christian mission, was the first to notice the change that was taking place in the political situation in India.

The coming to power of Congress ministries in seven out of eleven provinces in the India of 1937, had rung a bell in the minds that controlled the IMC. A meeting of the IMC was held at Tambaram in Tamil Nadu from December 12 to 29, 1938. It was presided over by the veteran American evangelist, J.R. Mott, a much-travelled and fabulous fund-raiser for the mission. Mott had looked forward to evangelisation of the whole world in one generation when he presided over the first IMC meeting at Edinburgh in 1910. But by the time he came to Tambaram, he was a much chastened man. Mahatma Gandhi had meanwhile emerged on the scene as an uncompromising opponent of the Christian mission. Mott had met the Mahatma twice in 1936 in order to fathom the latter's mind. He had found the Mahatma unshakable. Later on, he had sounded the Mahatma through C.F. Andrews to find out if a concession in favour of conversion could be made in cases of sincere conviction about the superiority of Jesus Christ. The Mahatma had ruled out conversion under any circumstances. He knew the mission's capacity for enlarging even the smallest concession until it covered any and every kind of mischievous liberty. "We have long held," proclaimed the IMC meeting under Mott's presidentship, "that the one serious rival for the spiritual supremacy of India that Christianity has to face is a resurgent Hinduism, and recent happenings deepen the conviction. The spirit of new Hinduism is personified in Mahatma Gandhi, whose amazing influence over his fellows is undoubtedly fed by the fires of religion and patriotism. Because he is a staunch Hindu and finds within the faith of his fathers the spiritual succour he needs, he strongly opposes the Christian claim that Jesus Christ is the one and only saviour. This reminds us again that unless the great Christian affirmations are verified in Christian living, they beat ineffectively on Indian minds."29 The IMC stalwarts did not spell out the details of Christian living that the mission was to demonstrate in days to come. But a beginning was made in the thesis, Rethinking Christianity in India, presented to the meeting at Tambaram by a group of native Christians led by P. Chenchiah. The Preface to the thesis pleaded that "Christ should be related to the great Indian religious heritage" and that "Christianity should assume an Indian expression in Life, thought and activity".30 The thesis devoted some chapters to such themes as Ashrams, The Christian Message in Relation to the National Situation, and Indian Christians under Swaraj. The same group came out with another major work in 1941, The Ashrams: Past and Present, on the subject of Indigenisation. Ale Ashram Movement followed in due course. The Protestant section of the mission was thus in position to launch Indigenisation on several fronts by the time India attained independence in 1947. The Catholic section of the mission had to wait until Rome gave permission after the Vatican Council II held in 1965. But, in the meanwhile, Fr. Jules Monchanin, the French missionary in Tamil Nadu had resurrected Brahmabandhab as a model for experimentation in the field of theology and missionary methods. He established the Saccidananda Ashram at Tannirpalli on the Kavery in 1950 and started living like a Hindu sannyasin. A French monk, Fr. Henri Le Saux, who was Monchanin's close collaborator in the experiment made an indepth study of Brahmabandhab before evolving his own strategy of undoing Hindu religion with the help of Hindu culture. The British monk, Fr. Bede Griffiths, has gone the farthest in aping Brahmabandhab, both in words and deeds. But without acknowledgement. Perhaps he finds it below his British prestige to acknowledge a debt to a mere native. Taken together, the mission's literature on the need for adopting a new posture vis-a-vis Hindu culture reads like communist literature evolving a new party line. One finds in the mission's

literature the same cold-blooded appraisal of new power equations, the same deliberations on how a new strategy should be evolved to meet a new situation, and the same trimming of tactics on various fronts. One also comes across the same confession of errors that had crept into the earlier theory and practice, without revealing how the earlier strategy and tac-ties had been evolved in relation to another political situation obtaining in another period. The slogans to be raised by the mission in days to come are periodically revised with a view to deceiving and disarming a new class of Hindus, as in the case of the communist party when looking for new fellow-travellers. The mission's re-writing of the history of Christianity in India also bears close resemblance to the same oft-repeated communist exercise. Christian historians have been busy trying to salvage Christian doctrine from the cesspool of Christian history. The wrongs heaped on Hindu society, religion and culture by the Christian mission in alliance with Western imperialism, are being explained away as "aberrations" arising out of "accidental association with colonialism". It was only a coincidence, we are told, that the Western nations which practised colonialism happened to be Christian nations. The crimes committed by colonialism, we are warned, should not be held against Christianity. It was not the fault of Christianity if, at times, it was used by colonialism as a cover for its own and quite different designs. Moreover, Christianity did not come to India for the first time in the company of colonialism. It is as old in this country as most of the Hindu sects in their present shape. Pandit Nehru is frequently quoted by Christian historians in order to point out that the Christianity which was brought to India by St. Thomas and which the Syrian Christians practise till to day, is known for its love of Hindu culture.31 In the end one is reminded of Bertrand Russell's observation that Communism is a Christian heresy. The close correspondence between the two cannot he dismissed as accidental. Both of them have their source in the Bible.

Footnotes:
1

Collected Works, Volume Thirty-nine, p. 33

Quoted by S. Immanuel David in his article on Indigenisation, Indian Church History Review, August 1977, pp. 104-105
2 3

Quoted by Richard Fox Young, Resistant Hinduism, Vienna, 1981, p. 171 Kaj Baago, op. cit., p. 3

B. Animanand, The Blade: Life and Work of Brahmabandhab Upadhay , Calcutta 1945, p. 54
5 6

Quoted in Ibid., p. 59 Ibid., pp. 59-60

Quoted in Ibid., pp. 67-68. Compare this passage with Fr. Bede's prescription, quoted above regarding the use of Hindu philosophy in the service of Christianity.
8 9

Quoted in Ibid., pp. 70-71. God become man or Jesus Christ. Quoted in Ibid., pp. 71-72. Italics in the original.

10

11

12

Quoted in Ibid., p. 75 Quoted in ibid., p. 78 Ibid., p. 87 Quoted in Ibid., 88 Quoted in Ibid., p. 91 Ibid., pp. 102-103 Quoted in Ibid., p. 103 Quoted in Ibid., p. 106 Quoted in Ibid., p. 108 Quoted in Ibid., p. 109 Quoted in Ibid., p. 115 Quoted in Ibid., p. 116 Quoted in Ibid., p. 113

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

He was repeating the patent missionary propaganda that people living in the tribal areas are not Hindus but 'pre-Aryan animists".
25 26

Quoted in Ibid., p. 113 Quoted in Ibid., Appendix I, p.iv Quoted in Ibid., p. 131 Tambram Series, Volume 3: Evangelism, London 1939, p. 126

27

28

29

Rethinking Christianity in India, Second Edition, Madras, 1939, first para in the Preface to the First Edition published in 1938.
30

Interestingly, while Dr. K. Latourette regards the nineteenth century, the peak period of Western colonialism, as the Great Century in his monumental work, A History of the Expansion of Christianity (7 volumes, London, 1937 - 1945), Dr. M.D. David, President of the Church History Association of India, sees in the same century "A Great Handicap to the Growth of Christianity in Asia" ( Western Colonialism in Asia and Christianity, Bombay, 1988
31

CHAPTER 8

Catholic Ashrams
Adopting and Adapting Hindu Dharma
The Shantivanam Ashram looks like a rishi's home transported from Vedic times to the banks of the sacred Cauvery River at a forested place near Trichy in South India. A pilgrim's first impressions are strong, and very Hindu; the elaborately colourful Hindu shrine; the bearded, saffron-robed "swami" seated cross - legged on a straw mat; devotees practising yogic meditations, even chanting Hindu scriptures. But these impressions gradually prove false. First, the eye detects that the courtyard shrine is for Saint Paul and that "puja" is actually, a daily Mass, complete with incense, arati lamps, flower

offerings and prasadam. Finally, one meets the "swami", learning he is Father Bede "Dayananda" Griffiths, a Christian "sannyasin" of impeccable British background. This is a Christian ashram, one of more than 50 in India, which are variously described as "experiments in cross-cultural communication," "contemplative hermitages that revolve around both Christian and Hindu ideals," or (less charitably) "institutions to brainwash and convert India's unwary masses." Are these places to be endorsed by Hindus as worthy attempts to share each other's spirituality? Or are they a spiritual oxymoron, a contradiction of terms, because the Christians are interested in sharing - dialogue is the term they use - only as a means to conversions? This special Hinduism Today report will focus on the issue of Catholic adoption and adaptation of those things that Hindus regard as their sacred heritage and spirituality, a policy the Catholics have named "inculturation." It is a complex issue involving doctrine, cultural camouflage, allegedly deceptive conversion tactics and more. Many Catholics will be perplexed by the issues raised in this report. They don't see what could be wrong with their selectively embracing those parts of Hindu spiritual discipline and culture which they find inspiring. And many Hindus, raised on decades of uncritical acceptance of any form of religious expression, may simply not care one way or the other. Hindu leaders are more and more aware that the Indianization of Christianity is a serious matter. They remember the fate of the American Indian religion and the native spiritual traditions of Africa and South America. More recently they recall that the Hawaiian people who numbered nearly 500,000 a century ago, are now less than 50,000 - their culture gone, their language spoken by a mere 500 people and their gods worshipped by a dying handful of Kahuna priests. All this was the effective and intentional bequest of a few dedicated Christian missionaries good people who thought their work necessary and divinely ordained. The purpose which drove these early missionaries to eliminate non-Christian faiths and cultures has not changed. It has become more subtle, more articulately argued. It is certainly more of a problem to Africans, but India's Hindus would do well to remain alert and informed. That is why it is essential to examine and understand such places as Father Bede's Shantivanam. Shantivanam Father Bede Griffiths is widely respected among Christians and Hindus alike. In the West the Catholics hold him in awe, a present-day saint whose lifetime association with the great religious traditions of ancient India is considered a courageous pioneering. Shantivanam's brochure describes its objectives: "The aim of the ashram remains to establish a way of contemplative life, based alike on the traditions of Christian monasticism and of Hindu sannyasa. Hinduism has a tradition of sannyasa - 'renunciation' of the world in order to seek God, or in Hindu terms, 'liberation' - which goes back many centuries before the birth of Christ and has continued to the present day. Our aim at Shantivanam is to unite ourselves with this tradition as Christian sannyasis. Our life is based on the Rule of Saint Benedict, the patriarch of Western monasticism [the Ashram is an official monastery of the Camaldolese Monks, founded in the 13th century in Italy], and on the teaching of the monastic Fathers of the Church, but we also study Hindu doctrine (Vedanta) and make use of Hindu methods of prayer and meditation (Yoga). The ashram seeks to be a place of meeting for Hindus and Christians and people of all religions or none, who are genuinely seeking God."

The residents of the ashram are generally Europeans, some of whom are initiated into "sannyas" by Father Griffiths and then return to their own countries. Others are novices of the order, sent for exposure to this way of life. All participate fully in the Indian life style of the place. A November, 1984 article in The Hindu newspaper, published in Madras, describes some of the ashramites: "A psychologist by profession, a young lady from W. Germany, Maria, said she visited the ashram annually. Before her experiencing this atmosphere here, she thought that the Bible has no message for her and now after studying the Vedanta here she could now say that her attitude towards the Bible and Christ had undergone total transformation. She felt that there was nothing wrong with the Christian religion. Mr. Desmond, a young lad from Bombay and a drug addict said that after coming to the ashram he was a transformed man and when he returned to Bombay after Christmas he would be a reformed man." The article goes on to say: "Father Griffiths has so far initiated 20 to 30 persons belonging to different nations as sannyasis and sannyasinis and all of them were spreading the message of this peaceful coexistence of the Trinity and non-duality in their own countries." The limits of Father Griffiths' experiment in inculturation are apparent in his theological stance on certain central Hindu beliefs: reincarnation, moksha and cycles of time. He has not adopted any Hindu beliefs which would be considered heretical by the Catholic Church. In a 1984 interview by Renee Weber published in Revision magazine, Father Griffiths said, "I consider reincarnation one of the most difficult doctrines to reconcile with Christian faith. According to popular belief the individual soul passes from body to body in a series of rebirths. I consider this entirely unacceptable from a Christian point of view." In regard to transcendent experience, the merging of the soul in God, the Moksha of Hindu theology, Renee Weber asked, "Was there this extraordinary openness and capacity for self-transcendence precisely in Jesus? Or can it happen again?" Father Griffiths replied, "In the Christian understanding, we would say no. He was open to the total reality of God. The rest of us have varying degrees of openness to the divine." Another area of difficulty is time. Hinduism conceives of time as vast cycles of creation and dissolution. Father Griffiths' concept is that time is strictly linear, starting at one point in the past and ending at one point in the future, never repeating itself. Though not covered in that particular interview, Father Griffiths would also have had to affirm his concept of God conformed with the five anathemas against pantheism stated by Vatican I and left unaltered by Vatican II. An anathema is a forbidden belief, a belief which contradicts the Catholic teaching. These forbidden five are: "1) Nothing exists except matter. 2) God and all things possess one and the same substance and essence. 3) Finite things, both corporeal and spiritual, or at least spiritual, emanated from the divine substance. 4) Ale divine essence becomes all things by a manifestation or evolution of itself. 5) God is universal or indefinite being, which by determining itself makes up the universe, which is diversified into genera, species and individuals." The Catholics Church forbids its priests to believe or preach any of these concepts, several of which are, of course, standard parts of most Hindu theologies. This shows that on the most central issue of theology - God - there is a vast chasm between Catholic and Hindu belief. Father Griffiths is an anomaly - a Hindu on the outside, a Catholic on the inside. And he's not the only one. Jeevandhara Ashram Jeevandhara Ashram, another Catholic ashram which is near Rishikesh in northern India, was founded by Ishapriya (Sister Patricia Kinsey) and Vandana of the Society of the Sacred Heart.

Considered the nun's equivalent of the Jesuits, this order has 7,000 members world-wide and deeply involved in education. Ishapriya was born in Britain, spent her novitiacy in London and then a year in Rome. She was sent on mission to India where she was deeply impressed by the spiritual values of the country. She stayed on, first at the Divine Life Society in Rishikesh, studying and eventually, she says, taking sannyas diksha from Swami Chidananda. Vandana was born in Bombay, ran away from home at 16 or 17, converted to Christianity and then entered the order, eventually becoming the provencale (head) in India. she and Ishapriya took sannyas together and founded the ashram. Like Shantivanam, the majority of the people at the ashram are western Christians, usually Sacred Heart nuns. They are also involved in missionary efforts to convert Hindus in the local area. The ashram moved twenty miles north of Rishikesh due to objections by local Hindus. A correspondent for Hinduism Today met briefly with Ishapriya in Carmel, California. She was conducting a six week retreat program in Ashtanga Yoga at the Angelica Convent. The whitehaired nun, about 50, was dressed in a saffron sari and wore a large cross around her neck. Hinduism Today inquired if there is any Christianity in her teachings. She replied, "Of course, there is Christianity in my teachings, I am a Catholic." We asked if she also teaches Catholicism in her ashram in India. She said the Hindus who attend are aware that she is a Christian. "There is no problem with that. They know that it is a Catholic ashram." Sensing that he was asking about her motives she stated. "We are only trying to make the Christians more aware. You are completely on the wrong track. We are only trying to pray." When asked why she took sannyas, she replied, "Sannyas is just where the spirit leads," and quickly excused herself. A Catholic nun's receiving sannyas from a Hindu swami seemed questionable, so Hinduism Today contacted Sadhaka Kartikeyan of the Divine Life Society at Rishikesh who was visiting San Francisco. He stated, "Our swamis would never initiate a Christian into Sannyas. Perhaps they were just given a mantram." Other Hindu leaders, including the head of Kasi Mutt in Tirupanandal, confirmed that it would not be possible for a non-Hindu to take sannyas. After all, sannyas is Hindu monkhood. The general attitude of the Order of the Sacred Heart toward Ishapriya is one of deep reverence and respect. But outside the order, a Sister explained, the mother Church remains uneasy with her Yoga teachings and Eastern look and leanings. Hindu Reaction The general Hindu reaction to these ashrams is one of tolerant, even loving acceptance and respect. Sarvadharma samabhva, equal respect for all religions, has long been a fundamental principle of Hindu culture.1 Allowing another person to hold beliefs different from one's own without attempting to change them, is dear to the Hindu's heart, and he does, in actual practice, accept an enormous range of beliefs within his own religion.2 Hindu History and Catholic Theology Yet, among those at the vanguard of Hindu renaissance there is suspicion, resistance and even outright hostility as shown by comments collected for Hinduism Today in India on the subject of Christian ashrams. Here is a sampling: G.M. Jagtiani of Bombay wrote: "A mischievous attempt is being made by some Christian missionaries to wear the saffron robe, put tilak on their forehead, recite the Gita, and convert the Hindus to Christianity." S. Shanmukham of the Hindu Munnani, Kanyakumari, states: "Once I met an orange-robed sannyasin. I took her to be a Hindu sannyasin. When asked, she said 'I have put on this dress so that I can come in contact with

Hindus very easily and tell them about Christianity'." R. Chidambasaksiamma, Kanyakumari, said, "It seems to be a sinister plan to make people accept Christ as God, the only God. They adopt all the philosophies and practices of Hindus but would accept only Jesus as God. It is only a development of their original plan of Indianisation of Christianity." At the root of these criticisms is a deep distrust of the Christians in India. Imposed by force from the outside, Christianity is still considered an unwelcome intrusion from the West. Even Mahatma Gandhi stated that from the time Christianity was established in Rome in the third century, "it became an imperialist faith as it remains to this day." This unfortunate legacy has never been forgotten by the Hindus. Though the military backing is no longer present, enormous sums of money are sent into India for the use of the missionaries. A well-monied and successful missionary is regarded as a threat to the national stability. The official government document, Madhya Pradesh Report on Christian Missionary Activities (1956) stated, "Evangelization in India appears to be a part of the uniform world policy to revive Christendom for re-establishing Western supremacy and is not prompted by spiritual motives. The objective is apparently to create Christian minority pockets with a view to disrupt the solidarity of the non-Christian societies. The ulterior motive is fraught with danger to the security of the State." Christians are only three per cent of India's population, yet they control 25% of all schools and 40% of all social service organizations. Their Western affiliations give them political entree and cultural clout beyond their numbers. Christians are widely viewed as not necessarily strongly loyal to the nation, the Catholics in particular being thought to be under the direct rule of the Vatican. The Madhya Pradesh report also says, "Because conversion muddles the convert's sense of unity and solidarity with his society, there is a danger of his loyalty to his country and state being undermined." New Delhi's Sita Ram Goel wrote a book on the Catholic threat in India full of intellectual fire. Papacy, Its Doctrine and History3 was published in response to the Pope's 1986 visit to India. This small volume is a scathing account of the history of Christians in India. Some excerpts: "Hindus at large were showing great aversion to Christianity accompanied as it was by wanton violence, loud-mouthed outpourings of the friars against everything which the Hindus cherished, killing of Brahmins and cows wherever the newcomers had no fear of reprisals, the extremely unhygienic habits of the Portuguese including their 'holy men', and the drunken revelries in which they all indulged very frequently. The only people who associated with the paranghis were prostitutes, pimps and similar characters living on the fringes of Hindu society," Goel explains the indifference which Hindus showed to the Christian missionaries: "To an average Hindu, saintliness signified a calm self-possession and contemplative silence. The paroxysms of these strangers could only amuse him, whenever they did not leave him dead cold." Finally Goel mentions the problem which continues to face the Christians: "Christianity had failed to register as a religion with the masses as well as the classes of Hindu society. They continued to look at this imported creed as an imposition with the help of British bayonets." It is against this background that any activities of the Christians are viewed. The early missionaries were not at all above acquiring converts by force, money or deception. And it's reported that unscrupulous tactics still abound. The present Catholic ashrams have inherited a history of intrigue and subterfuge. Here is a description from the Madhya Pradesh Report: "Robert De Nobili (A Catholic Jesuit priest) appeared in Madura in 1607 clad in the saffron robes of a Sadhu with sandal paste on his forehead and the sacred thread on his body. He gave out that

he was a Brahmin from Rome. He showed documentary evidence to prove that he belonged to a clan that had migrated from ancient India. He declared that he was bringing a message which had been taught in India by Indian ascetics of yore and that he was only restoring to Hindus one of their lost sacred books, namely the 5th Veda, called Yeshurveda (Jesus Veda). It passed for a genuine work until the Protestant Missionaries exposed the fraud about the year 1840. This Brahmin Sannyasi of the 'Roman Gotra', Father De Nobili, worked for 40 years and died at the ripe age of 89 in 1656. It is said that he had converted about a lakh of persons but they all melted away after his death."4 Critics also point to more recent examples of hidden motives in establishing ashrams and adopting the appearance of sannyasins. Noted Indian writer Ram Swarup in his pamphlet "Liberal" Christianity5 quoted the intentions of one of the founders of Shantivanam, Father J. Monchanin: "Fr. J. Monchanin himself defines his mission in these terms: 'I have come to India for no other purpose than to awaken in a few souls the desire (the passion) to raise up a Christian India. It will take centuries, sacrificed lives and we shall perhaps die before seeing any realizations. A Christian India, completely Indian and completely Christian will be something so wonderful the sacrifice of our lives is not too much to ask." It is precisely this goal, which can only be described as the spiritual genocide of Hindu dharma, which motivates leaders like Swarup and movements like VHP and RSS to protect India's religious traditions against overt conversion efforts. The Catholic Response Catholic leaders Hinduism Today spoke with consider all of these complaints to be problems of the past. Father John Keane, Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs officer of the Archdiocese of San Francisco said, "The main thrust of Pope John Paul II is 'irrevocable commitment' to the unity of the Churches [the various Christian sects] and to fostering dialogue and cooperation amongst the religions of the world. The Church began to realise that within non-Christian religions there is truth, there is goodness and there is beauty and it is about time we began to recognize it. Whatever policies were directed toward non-Christian religions before, the Church has said [through the Second Vatican Council] are not according to what the Church through Jesus Christ has been trying to say," In other words, the Church has seen the errors of its ways. When asked about militant or devious conversion tactics, he said, "Well, you know they're called 'Rice Christians.' The Church is getting nowhere through that. That type of missionary zeal is no longer really appreciated. We don't make friends with anyone by doing those kind of things. What [I have explained] is the official attitude of the Roman Catholic Church towards the Hindu tradition. If anyone in India feels that the Hindu tradition is pagan and has to be rubbed out, ignored or fought against violently, they haven't understood what the Vatican Council is trying to say." Vatican II The widespread support for these Catholic ashrams by the official Church is one part of the vast fall-out from the Second Vatican Council (Vatican H) held from 1962 to 1965. Vatican II was an attempt to confront the challenge to Catholicism in the 20th century, yet it apparently precipitated, through its decision, an even greater crisis than it intended to solve. Many new interpretations of doctrine were set forth - one on non-Christians was a major one. As a result of numerous fundamental changes, the Catholic Church faces a crises within itself. In America alone the Catholic Church is losing members at the rate of one thousand per day. In 1984 in the

United States, 1,100 new priests were ordained compared with 14,000 in 1964. The conclusion from these figures is drawn by such persons as Bishop Jon Diegal of the American Catholic Church of the Malabar Rite: for its very survival, the Catholic Church must make an impact in Asia and Africa before it dwindles in the West. One result of Vatican II was a new attitude toward Hinduism and other religions, released by Paul VI in 1964: "[The Church] regards with sincere reverence those ways of conduct and of life, those precepts and teachings which, though differing in many aspects from the ones she holds and sets forth, nonetheless often reflect a ray of that Truth which enlightens all men. The Church, therefore, exhorts her sons, that through dialogue and collaboration with the followers of other religions, carried out with prudence and love and in witness to the Christian faith and life, they recognize, preserve and promote the good things, spiritual and moral, as well as the sociocultural values found among these men." In regard to Hinduism, he stated: "In Hinduism men explore the divine mystery and express it both in the limitless riches of myth and the accurately defined insights of philosophy. They seek release from the trials of the present life by ascetical practices, profound meditation and recourse to God in confidence and love." Vatican II's new Code of Canon Law offers this definition of dialogue: "By the witness of their lives and their message, let the missionaries enter into a sincere dialogue with those who do not yet believe in Christ. Accommodating their approach to the mentality and culture of their audience, they will open up the way for them to reach the point where they are ready to accept the Good News [the Gospel of Christ]." Inculturation has become a very central aspect of the relation of the Church to Asia and Africa and is the basis for the present existence of Catholic ashrams. A thorough exposition of the idea was made by the Third General Conference of Latin American Bishops in January of 1978. Here are statements from their report: "The Church must make the attempt to translate the Gospel message into the anthropological language and symbols of the culture into which it is inserted. This is what is meant by inculturation of the Gospel. Yet the Church ought also to regard culture with a critical eye, denouncing sin and amending, purifying and exorcizing its counter-values and overthrowing its idolatrous values. The Church leads people on to abandon false ideas of God, unnatural behavior and the illegitimate manipulation of person by person. The Church inspires local cultures to accept through faith the lordship of Christ, without whose grace and truth, they would be unable to reach their full stature." Translation: "Let them keep those cultural forms we approve, but make them Catholics." In a lengthy interview with Hinduism Today, Father Frank Podgorski, Director of Asian Area Studies at Seton Hall University, New Jersey [USA], spoke on the subject of the new approach of the Catholic Church. He is a noted scholar in Asian studies and the author of the popular book, Hinduism: A Beautiful Mosaic. He said, "I don't deny that there have been difficulties in the past, and that there are difficulties in the reality of the present. But as part of the official Church thrust today, there is a call for reverence, respect, a call for making the Hindu a better Hindu, allowing the Hindu to be a better Hindu. In Africa, in recent days, after the India trip, Pope John Paul II called for a truly African Church to emerge. An African Church in which the African spirit would enter in and enrich the Church and make it more Catholic and by that he talks about basic customs entering into the tradition of the Church. Now we're talking really about adapting the

natural habits in such a way so that the teaching of Christ, so that Christ may more fully communicate with the spirit of Africa and that means adapting natural prayer forms and things of that nature. So just as yoga may be adapted, so may various other ways." Hindu/Catholic Dialogue: The Future Father Podgorski's statement that "we're not talking about changing the Church theologically" is crucial and fraught with ramifications for the Hindu. As long as the Catholic Church continues to claim a divine monopoly on salvation, its tolerance for other faiths will be incomplete and its adaptation to other religions only superficial adjustments for the purpose of expansion. Vatican II made the Church's ultimate stance crystal clear: "[The Council] relies on sacred Scripture and Tradition in teaching that this pilgrim Church is necessary for salvation. Christ alone is the mediator of salvation and the way of salvation. He presents himself to us in his body, which is the Church. When he insisted expressly on the necessity for faith and baptism, he asserted at the same time the necessity for the Church which men would enter by the gateway of baptism. This means that it would be impossible for men to be saved if they refused to enter or to remain in the Catholic Church, unless they were unaware that her foundation by God through Jesus Christ made it a necessity." It is difficult for the Hindu to reconcile this statement with the declaration, on Non-Christian religions made by the same council. Clearly while striving for true tolerance, the Church is still anchored by its fundamental "one path, one church" dogma. On the one hand the Church admits that there is truth and beauty in other religions. On the other it declares the Catholic Church essential for salvation. Practical Applications of Dialogue and Inculturation Hindus who have heard these semantic posturings and seen Hindu children slowly drawn away from their faith criticise this approach as clever maneuvering. Ram swarup in his "Liberal" Christianity pamphlet notes: "Their procedure is not to denounce Hinduism forthright: it is to take different categories of Hindu thinking and after exhausting all the positive points that Hinduism provides as solutions, proceed to show that Christianity gives fuller and ultimate solution to those and all other problems." He has quoted here from the book entitled Indian Interiority and Christian Theology which is a summary of a meeting by Christian theologians of India at Almora. Swarup recounts their evaluation of Bhakti: "Hindu Bhakti too has more demerits than merits. Its chief defects are that (1) 'the notion of love itself is not perfect;' (2) 'there is no integration between knowledge and love,'- one has to choose between them; and (3) it lacks a 'perfect concept of alterity [that God and His creation are separate] and there is no proper concept of sin.' Nevertheless, the Bhakti of a Hindu could still be a preparation for the final confrontation with the personal God who manifests Himself in the Christian Revelation.''' Swarup, who considers his religion the most enlightened known to man, is offended by the Almora conclusions. A comparison might best illustrate Hindu concerns. Let us imagine that one day a Muslim missionary arrives in a poor section of America such as a part of the Catholic Hispanic (Mexican Origin) section of San Francisco. Well supplied with zeal and petrodollars from his own country, he learns Spanish, builds a Muslim cathedral along the lines of a Catholic building, outfitting it with pews, organs, choirs and so forth. Preaching from a Christian Bible appropriately edited according to the Koran, he puts on the clerical collar and black robes of a Catholic Priest and holds Sunday services which look just like Mass, except that prayers are to Allah and

Mohammed instead of Jesus. In ministering to the local people, he tells them that his Islamic faith is just a slight variation of Christianity, one which puts the crowning touches on it. Their father's religion, Catholicism was, he says, flawed but it is a good preparation for Islam. He gives loans to those in need, which need not be repaid if one joins his Church. He opens an orphanage and raises the children as Muslims though their parents are Christians. When accused of deceiving the people, he says he is only adapting his religion to the local context and expressing his Muslim charity and divine call to evangelize. In this situation, would not the local Catholic leaders be offended? Would they not point out that this preacher was making an unfair and undue impact because of his foreign funding? They would ask why he did not simply come forward as he was, a Muslim, and not pretend that his religion was only an "improved" version of Christianity. They would challenge his right to wear the vestments their community honored, to sing the hymns their mystics composed, usurp symbols held to be holy, to draw their people away from Christ, thereby dividing the families and pitting wife against husband, father against son and neighbor against neighbor. This is the situation the Hindu finds himself in, though it has developed over several hundred years. Christian missionaries have adopted Hindu ways of life, Hindu religious symbols, architecture, worship forms and declared themselves as Swamis. A Catholic priest who calls himself "swami" instantly attains the status and authority of a holy man in Hindu society, which he can use to make converts. By using Sanskrit terminology in his sermons he implies a close relationship of Hindu theology to Catholic theology, a relationship which does not really exist. Such missionaries speak authoritatively on Hindu scriptures and argue that their [Christian] teachings are consonant with everything Hindu, but add a finishing touch, a "fullness," to the traditional faith. Hindus are seriously questioning whether yoga, puja, and sannyas, which are so deeply rooted in particular Hindu theological concepts, can ethically be adopted by Christianity. Christians don't believe in the practice of Yoga as the means to God-Realization - as taught by Hindus. Puja is based upon an understanding of Gods and Devas which Catholics do not share. And finally sannyas is Hindu monasticism, rooted in Hindu beliefs, leading not to heaven and Jesus but to moksha - the Hindu's realization of Absolute Truth. The Future As the 21st century nears, Catholics are more interested than ever in India and in Hinduism, as indicated by the Pope's January visit to the subcontinent and by a growing number of faculty and departments in US Catholic universities dedicated to Asian Studies. As they have drawn closer to Hinduism, their history and motives in India and elsewhere have come under scrutiny. Hindu spiritual leaders and intellectuals are open to the dialogue Catholics seek, but not if cooperation and brotherliness opens Hindu families to unethical conversion strategies. Obviously, the Catholic Church will legitimately adopt certain outer forms from Indian culture to serve existing members, but these have ethical limits. Among those actions of the Church which Hindus consider exceed these limits are the priests' and nuns' adoption of Hindu vestments and religious titles like "swami" and participation in non-Catholic sacraments such as sannyas. The misleading use of Hindu scripture and yoga teachings must also be examined, as should Catholic use of social and educational services which should not subtly erode Hindu faith or take advantage of Indian poverty to convert. Ethical guidelines must be crafted that allow Catholics to attend wholly to their members' spiritual needs, but do not impinge unscrupulously on Hindus.

Hindus continue to be wary of Christian expansionism and criticism of Hindu culture and theology. An energetic Hindu renaissance has turned wariness into open challenge to Christian conversions, with results yet to be seen. Still, Hindu respect all the great faiths, honor their spirituality. The difference today is that they demand that the Sanatana Dharma be equally respected and honored in the Vedic spirit of "Truth is one, paths are many."

Footnotes:
This is not true. The slogan, sarva-dharma-samabhva, was coined by Mahatma Gandhi in recent times, and extended to Christianity and Islam. The medieval and modern Hindu acharyas have never accepted the prophetic creeds as dharmas.
1

This is true if the beliefs do not lead to aggression. Hindus who extend tolerance towards doctrines of intolerance are not aware of their tradition vis-a-vis surika belief systems. They have become victims of the motivated propaganda, now internalised by many Hindus, that Hindus can and should tolerate, even respect, every doctrine howsoever devilish.
2 3

Published by Voice of India in January, 1986

The Niyogi Report seems to have swallowed the missionary propaganda about the extent of De Nobili's sucess. He had converted only 120 Hindus.
4

Published in 1982 in Manthan, a quarterly from New Delhi, and included in Hinduism vis-a-vis Christianity and Islam published by Voice of India, 1982. Reprinted in 1984, this book has been enlarged in a new edition brought out in 1993.
5